Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, and Hockey are the epitome of sports in America. These are the sports that Americans would recognize as the traditional ones that air on television every week. But these sports aren’t the only players in their category. Dance is considered by many to be a sport, and I happen to agree. I was a competitive dancer for 13 years and I know the strength and grace that dancers must have while dealing with the pain and strain that their bodies are going through. Many people that disagree about dance’s sports status will say that dancers are in fact athletes participating in an art. But I’m not trying to advance the idea that dancers are athletes, because that goes without saying. I aim to clarify for those who disagree that not only are dancers athletes but the dancing that these athletes participate in is a sport.
The Oxford Dictionary defines a sport as: “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” It goes on to mention baseball and soccer as examples of sports. This is because the societal perception of sports has been warped to only include the rough and tough hitting sports that people watch while eating a plate of pizza and wings in the definition. People don’t associate competitiveness with dance or dancers, but that shouldn’t be the case. The competitive nature of dance is as physically and mentally challenging as any other sport. Dancers are constantly competing with themselves and their peers to be the best, whether it’s being a part of a competitive dance team, auditioning for a dance company, or the daily physical comparisons that dancers inherently make.
Principal American Ballet Theatre dancer, Misty Copeland, paired up with Under Armour to create a commercial that showcased the physical aspect of dance. Misty Copeland explained, “The commercial showing the physicality of what it takes to be a dancer, and to be a professional ballerina ... is giving us the respect that we are just as hardworking as any athlete." Many people fail to recognize dance as a sport because they express that it’s not as physically trying as the “harder” sports appear to be. But that’s because dancer’s lives and practice routines aren’t plastered across television screens. So unless you’re a dancer or you’ve watched one practice, than you won’t understand the toll that dancing takes on the body.
If your body isn’t naturally flexible and the "ideal dancers body" when you start dancing, you have to stretch, pull, and turnout your body until it looks that way. It’s also not something that you can achieve one day and stop working for. Constant stretching and strengthening the body is required to keep up the proper physical features. Not to mention that holding almost the entirety of your body weight on your toes in pointe shoes is bound to cause more physical problems. Dancers are tasked with the responsibility of working through the immense pain and soreness to put on a picture perfect performance. That is why I have always, and will always classify dance as an art and a sport. Yes, dancers entertain by being graceful and gliding across the stage but they’re also tough and go through physical challenges just as any other athlete.
